In general, the term "equipment shelter" should be understood as designating a transportable enclosure which houses equipment on which a technical team works, with the particular equipment naturally being a function of the intended application. Such equipment shelters are transported by heavy goods vehicles fitted with platforms. On arrival at the working site, the equipment shelter is stabilized on the ground using one of the following three solutions.
In a first solution, the equipment shelter is merely placed on the ground by hoisting means which preferably form a part of the heavy goods vehicle, and it is stabilized on the ground, for example, either by legs of adjustable length carried by the equipment shelter, or else by wedging with chocks. In general, this first solution has the merit of being simple, but it necessarily gives rise to stabilization that is approximate, in particular with reference to the position of the equipment shelter relative to the horizontal.
In a second solution, the equipment shelter remains installed on the platform of the transporting heavy goods vehicle and it is stabilized relative to the ground indirectly by means of jacks or other actuators fitted to the heavy goods vehicle.
In a third solution, the equipment shelter also remains in place on the platform of the transporting heavy goods vehicle, but it is stabilized relative to the ground directly by means of hinged arms or struts carried by the equipment shelter and that bear directly on the ground.
In certain applications, the equipment carried in an equipment shelter must be thoroughly stabilized relative to the ground in order to be capable of operating properly. This applies in particular to mobile radar installations that are housed in transportable equipment shelters which are surmounted by antennas. For such installations, it turns out that the third above-mentioned technical solution is the solution used most frequently, however that solution is not without its drawbacks.
In general, the stabilization struts used comprise actuators that can be retracted by means of deformable parallelograms and means for locking the actuators in position, thus giving rise to complex structures that are quite bulky, relatively heavy, and having numerous hinge axes that make it difficult to obtain good stiffness.
The object of the invention is to design stabilization struts capable of mitigating the above-mentioned drawbacks by means of a hinge mechanism that is simpler and more reliable for extending and for folding the struts, while also providing other advantages.